Whatever - Bentleigh Greens 0 South Melbourne 2

The team having secured a home final of some sort several weeks ago now, and then seemingly having put the cue in the rack until such time as the finals series begins, it befits your correspondent to also not give too much of a toss either. With five games left, as long as no-one does something wildly stupid getting themselves an inconvenient suspension, and as long as none of our opponents decide leg-breaking time is just around the corner, I'm content to not get too worked up about anything that happens between now and week 1 (or potentially week 2) of the finals.

Nothing that I saw on the live stream at a mate's place last Saturday gave me any reason to think we were likely to re-find our one patch of annoyingly watchable good form from midway through the season any time soon. Even Jake Marshall's wonderful goal was only possible because of two horrible attempts to get it into the box in first place; first, the corner which barely reached shoulder height of the first defender inside the box, then Jack Painter-Andrews' wayward ball off the side of his boot which just so happened to land on the chest of Big Jake, who channelled his inner Big Luke for 1-0.

The starting line-up was weird again - Ajak Riak on the bench? - but whatever. I'll grant that the team showed more pressing intent, and that it didn't look quite as poor as it did against the same team that made it look second rate back in our first meeting in 2023; but that's also down to Bentleigh also not being quite as dynamic on Saturday as they were back then. Still, the Greens had enough chances to scrounge a point at least. Quite how they stuffed up some of those chances has got me beat. I don't even really feel like looking back on the final stats to find out how many shots we had on goal.

Time to pivot

So now that the rest of the home and away season doesn't mean much to me anymore, we still have to find something to care about until the finals start. Turns out the perfect thing has been sitting under our noses the entire season. Brad Norton, who started the season on 280 competitive fixtures for this sometimes great club, is now up to 294. So the maths is pretty clear. Brad needs six games to get to 300. There are a minimum of six matches left for us this season, being five regular season, and one finals match. Brad has to play in every game to reach the mark, because we assume he wont' be back next year. (I wonder how the testimonial plans are coming along...)

Our record keeping being sketchy as fuck, reliably I can only come up with two players who have definitely reached the 300 mark for us, they being Trimmers and Steve Blair. Horsey may have got there, but some of the data from cup matches early in his time with us is not quite complete, so for now he's nominally stranded on 296.

So that's what's going to keep me occupied South-wise over the next few weeks.

Next game
Port Melbourne away on Saturday evening. Another chance to see if the school camp the Port Melbourne Plebs went on a few years back in 2018 has finally finished.

Is there a curtain raiser this week?

No. The under 21s match is scheduled for after the senior match.

Eight days a week
So not too far back, looking ahead to the rescheduled Heidelberg game set for a Wednesday, I wondered if we'd ever actually had a season where we'd played on every day of week. My instinct said that surely we hadn't, but a spare Sunday afternoon waiting for pirated sumo highlights to be uploaded afforded me the chance to go over the files and demonstrate that instinct sucks. 

I found five seasons where we'd played on each day of the week, including two within the last decade. Well, they do say that if you remember the Chris Taylor years, then you weren't really there. 

There were also several seasons with games on five days of the week, and a few with six. Usually the days not played on were Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are a certain set of conditions you need for this phenomenon to occur. You need lots of games, so a cup tournament or two helps. You also usually need to go on deep runs in those cups. Postponed and rescheduled matches are also good to have. You especially need floodlights; no floodlights means less chance for midweek games. And the big one you might not think of, public holidays. Anzac Day, Boxing Day, New Year's or Australia Day falling midweek can help you get across the line.

For the record, the five seasons are 1989, 1992/93, 1996/97, 2016, and 2017. Soon to be joined by 2023.

Final thought
Success! Random security-guy at a job-site I was at this week recognised that it was a South beanie, not a North one. Turns out he's an up and coming ref, relatively new to the local scene. Trying to explain even just the nonsense that happened last year with the grand final venue means recalling a lot of niche cultural detritus that makes one question one's life choices.

Out / In / Still Here

Out

As the senior men's season has finally come to an end - the senior women's team season persists in their state cup tournament - we arrive at that point in the year where some of our senior men's team players are departing. To start off - Luke Pavlou, Zac Bates, and Gerrie Sylaidos are all officially on the way out. All three were the subject of rumours among fan circles to be on the way out, and so it has come to be. 

The player departure that South fans will be most viscerally unhappy about is Sylaidos, principally because the opinion exists that Gerrie didn't get a proper go under the coaching arrangement we have at the moment. Looking back, that's only half-true; Sylaidos played almost every match in 2019 (initially under Con Tangalakis, and then Esteban Quintas), 2020 was a bust for everyone, and 2021 wasn't a whole lot better than 2020.

And it's not like Gerrie didn't have his drawbacks. He struggled to run out games, and his small frame provided obvious disadvantages. However it's also fair to say that Quintas' frequent changing of Gerrie's role and position, the coach's lineup rotations, and especially his defensive set-ups, did not help to maximise the potential of a player whose best attributes lay in the forward third of the pitch. 

As for the psychology of Gerrie being in and out of the starting eleven, and having other non-winger players playing on the wing instead of him... that's for those closer to the situation to judge, but I can't imagine it helped Gerrie much when it seemed the coach would not or could not place his trust in Gerrie.

Still, maybe some of us on the terraces got too far ahead of ourselves with Sylaidos, and overrated him. But then again, if any of us overrated Gerrie, we were not alone. He was the league's 2018 under 21 player of the year, and had trials with Central Coast Mariners in mid-2019. We were impressed by the glimpses he'd shown, especially against us, and thought that there was much more to come. 

And because Gerrie was (in our minds at least) one of us - a South fan, or at least someone with South feeling - we wanted him not only to do well, but we also wanted to protect him from the opposition who targeted his light frame, from referees who wouldn't protect him those attacks, and from a coach with a game plan which seemed to be geared to getting the least out of Gerrie.

Zac Bates, too, was a player that was in and out of the starting lineup for reasons similar to Sylaidos. Starting eleven rotation policies didn't help Bates' cause, as did his inability to run out games. To that, Bates had the added problem of hamstrings which seemed perennially on the cusp of exploding. 

When he did manage to get on the field, there was a player with speed and the potential to frighten opposition defenders, especially those instructed to play a high line. But like a lot of his teammates Bates' finishing was just not good enough, and in a setup which created few chances on goal, every opportunity missed counted for more.

It would be interesting to see Bates with a proper preseason under his belt, as well as consistent and uninterrupted first-team football. He may just end up showing everyone that he was actually worth a better go at Lakeside. I fancy though that like Sylaidos - who like Bates, has ended up at Northcote - Bates will have become tired of Lakeside even if he was asked to stay.

Defensive midfielder Luke Pavlou has also gone, apparently by his own desire. I'm not sure why we brought him back for a second stint. Some will say he was one of our better players this year, but I don't think he ever overcame the deficiencies that were evident in his first stint - namely his skill with the ball when under pressure. That, and we already had other defensive midfielders who I think are better. 

To the official departures, we can also add two rumours. First, young defender Giorgi Zarbos is apparently out, which would not be a surprise given his very limited first team opportunities. More substantially, Neos Kosmos reported last week that midfielder Daniel Clark has agreed to lucrative terms with Oakleigh, knocking back offers from South and Bentleigh.

And honestly, I'm OK with that. I was never a fan, and that's no secret. A journeyman midfielder of little note from a club of similar mediocrity to our own, the signing screamed of a lack of ambition. Even from the point of view of trying to snaffle a bargain in cost-cutting times, I could not see where the upside was going to come from. And largely, it didn't.

I couldn't (most times) fault the effort Clark put in, but clearly as the player that more than most was designated as "the guy" - the one most relied upon to do good stuff that would lead to other good stuff - it just didn't work. And if you have any doubts that that's the job Daniel Clark was asked to do, think about how many games he missed; he was basically the first outfielder picked every game.

I sympathise to a degree with the predicament he repeatedly found himself in, being asked to be that creative everyman with very little numerical support, because of how far back we sat in most games. But even if you were a fan, or at least recoil from making him the scapegoat for our troubles, one must agree that Clark leaving would open up all sorts of possibilities. At the very least, it means that the fixation on that one player can be dispensed with in favour of something more flexible and dare I say. democratic.

No word on whatever it is that happened to goalkeeper Pierce Clark, and I suspect we will never get a satisfactory answer.

In

As with the departures, almost without exception every 2022 player signing announced by the club had already been foreshadowed either in the press or on the South forum. I've said it before, but the days of the Chris Taylor era vault are long behind us. Also, maybe it doesn't even matter if everyone knows what we're doing, and that getting upset or even defiantly nonplussed are not worth the bother.

So yes, Andy Brennan is back for a third go, but we've already spoken about that. Also coming onboard is Alun Webb, a forward most recently of Melbourne Knights, and defensive midfielder Pat Langlois of Hume. Signing two players from a single club in one go, especially as that club is one of the more proficient ones of recent times - especially as that club still has FFA Cup and Dockerty Cup matches to play - raises all sorts of questions.

Most of those questions to me come back to money - how much we're paying, and how much the relevant opposition club is no longer willing or perhaps able to pay. Hume City's major sponsor (for both front of shirt and stadium naming rights) is in a bit of strife. One doesn't to write off an entire club's short-term future based on one sponsor (potentially) leaving, but it does open the door to speculation.

Attacking player Henri Scott is the real wildcard so far, in that he wasn't someone whose signing was mooted anywhere else before it was announced. That, and he comes from Warragul in the state leagues, which is a baffling origin story, and something more like a (dare I say it) CT-era attempt to pluck one player out of obscurity.

Oh, and another Queenslander, forward Max Mikkola, just because.

Still Here

Brad Norton has signed for an eleventh season, putting him in the esteemed ranks of our longest serving players by number of seasons, with only players such as Paul Trimboli and Steve Blair ahead of him. Marcus Schroen is also coming back next year, as are Harrison Sawyer and Marco Jankovic. Fullback and winger Chris Irwin is also onboard for 2022, after missing the entire of 2021 with injury.

And one more thing

How's the homegrown, young talent plan going?

Painful - South Melbourne 2 Eastern Lions 1

Gerrie Sylaidos aims to keep the ball in play. 
Photo: Gold Leaf Creative.

At home, yelling at the television. That's not a way to live, not for the NPL. But enough on that. we all know what that's like. 

What this game revealed is that there's something to be said for the mentality you take into a match. Eastern Lions came to Lakeside looking to try and win the game, and South... I'm not sure South went into the game trying to win it. When they took the lead, when they were down to ten men, and then chasing the game, Lions were trying to win the game. It may not have been the smartest thing to do in every situation, but as a fan of a team which is cautious to a fault, my goodness it was invigorating (and infuriating) to see a team that no one in our league really rates, having a go because quite clearly their coach believes in the talent at his disposal.

And while ordinarily I would use the term "limited" next to the word "talent", it would be a misnomer to a certain extent, because in this league every player's talent is limited. Even the talent of a squad as a whole is limited. Some are more limited than others, but at this level the standard of individual players is such that individually and collectively there are faults and weaknesses which are glaring. That's fine, we all know what we're watching and who we're watching.

But these players and teams also have strengths, and credit to Lions, they seem to focus more on what they can do rather than what they can't. Can I say the same for South Melbourne? Maybe those closer to the team can, but I can't. Maybe the emphasis is slanted toward a method I can't discern. Maybe the coaches believe the greatest strength of the team is not in its individual and collective talent, but in its adaptability; not in terms of changing its approach to a game based on different circumstances presented to it, but rather, every player should be able to play within a variety of positions within the rigid philosophy set by Esteban Quintas; a philosophy which seems to be, play almost no one in the same position two weeks in a row; that nearly every player belongs in the starting line-up; and that we should sit as deep as possible, and hold on to the ball for as long as possible, and take as few chances as possible.

We move the ball back and around, back and around, sideways and backwards, and only pass the ball forwards at "obvious" moments where it's not likely to come back the other way. I could talk about taking more chances in midfield, but that would be too obvious. But here's the worst of it: we pass the ball back to the keeper when there is no material benefit in doing so. So on Wednesday, Lirim Elmazi (but it could be any of our rotating cast of centre backs), will collect the ball on the edge of his own box, pass the ball back maybe a metre or two to goalkeeper Pierce Clark, who then passes it back to Lirim. An eternity passes by in the meantime, as the playing system which seeks to instil an abject deferral of responsibility to someone else at all times comes into play.

Thus we are trailing, and there is no urgency. Urgency is different from panic; panic is wayward, agitated, scattershot. Urgency is alert, aware, and proactive. We are not proactive, at least not nearly as much as we should be. Is there open shot on offer? Let's hold on to it. Is there a pass that could be made? Let's hold on to it  Should we put in a corner directly into the box, to our tall timber, against a small and inexperienced back up goalkeeper? Let's play it short, and hold on to it.

I'm not against rotating players, horses for courses when it's necessary or obvious, nor in giving young players a go. But where's the method to how it's done here? Where is the method anywhere? Without going back and harping on our last period of success four years ago, because the circumstances were different then - a much bigger budget for a start - there is one thing we can say about the Chris Taylor era: that for all his drawbacks as a coach, he had a method. It isn't even about the method working or not, but I would like to know what is the exact thinking that goes into team selection, team arrangement, team philosophy. Of course Quintas doesn't really do interviews, and his English isn't crash hot either, but still... what's the method?

Say we get to a stage where we have our next FFA Cup against an NPL opponent as opposed to Monbulk Rangers (and let's hope that it is Monbulk Rangers in the next round). Or let's say that we are in a finals match. So, a game in which, if we lose, our participation in the competition ceases. What is our best team? Who is in our starting eleven? How are they arranged? What does the bench look like? I don't think anyone, not the fans, not the coach, nor the players, can honestly say what that starting eleven looks like.

Anyway, we haven't scored from open play for several matches (against Hume was the last time), and since then we have scrounged whatever results we have thanks to penalties, and on Wednesday a set piece (a corner). Maybe it was a case of Daniel Clark playing 5D chess when he rounded Keegan Coulter and didn't take the initial shot; he probably would have missed, or it would have been cleared off the line, or something would have gone wrong. And not even because it was Daniel Clark, though he's had a torrid time in front of goals the last couple of games, but because we just do not seem to remember how to score.

Even the young lad (was it Sasha Murphy?) who was teed up by Henry Hore (the only player who seemingly takes the game on with any consistency in forward positions) and blasted a gimme goal wide. Luckily for all concerned, Clark's eventual shot (which may have ended up going on to hit the post) was saved by the hands of a diving Lions outfielder. It was a remarkable sequence of play which changed the game on several fronts. One, we scored from the penalty (thank goodness) and equalised; two, the Lions defender got sent off; and three, Coulter injured himself in trying to prevent Clark from getting to the ball first.

Even so, Lions did not go into their shell and try and grind out the match. They played to win, and made us look silly in the process. And it wasn't even like those cliched "ten men firing up against eleven" moments - they were outplaying us tactically. Sitting deep and using the false nine set up (because we have no strikers) was not going well. Thank goodness that we finally decided to put a corner directly into the box, which Elmazi scored from, because otherwise we were going to be riding our luck for the the rest of the game. Which we did anyway, because we took off Elmazi straight after his goal, which must be a sign that Quintas has supreme confidence in the team, much more than I could possibly have.

Skipper Brad Norton chaired off in his 250th game.
Photo: Gold Leaf Creative.

Unable to finish them off - even three on three chances were ruined by repeated poor touches - we managed to get away with it, as Lions failed to bundle a late goal home from very close range. The whole experience reminded me somewhat of that Dockerty Cup quarter final from 2013 against Preston, Makeshift line up against an inferior opponent, and needing all the luck in the world to get through. I suppose we should be happy that we did, but my goodness it was hard work watching this game. Centre backs playing defensive mid when your defensive mid is on the bench. No strikers, and the bloke you recruited and called a striker (but who is really an attacking mid) not able to run out a full game (or so it seems).

And I just can't wait to go and see and complain about it all the in flesh again.

Next game

At home on tonight against the winless Altona Magic.

Final thought

Congratulations to Brad Norton on his 250th game for the club.

Brad Norton signs on for 2021 season

Apart from whatever Football Victoria thinks it can concoct in terms of a short-forum tournament for the tail-end of this miserable year, it appears that the rest of 2020 for South fans will be spent like this - ticking off signings and re-signings for season 2021. And maybe the announcement of some sort of limited edition merchandise if we're lucky. Who knows how this year's AGM will get held, but I'm sure people will figure it out.

Anyway, not a new signing this time, but another re-signing, with Brad Norton committing to South for the 2021 season, which will be his tenth in blue and white. It's been a very long time since we had a ten year player at the club, and Brad has done well to last as long as he has. Think about this - he's not only survived the last two and a bit seasons of upheaval (in some respects for him, the easier said than done bit), but he's survived the clean-out that accompanied Chris Taylor's arrival.

So who was the last ten-year player at South? From the players who played for us only post-NSL, Fernando de Moraes managed nine seasons; among the next best, Ramazan Tavsancioglu, six. The best of the rest probably somewhere around that five or six year mark. 

Then there are those players who spent time with us both in the NSL and after it. Tansel Baser had five NSL seasons at South, and two more in the VPL era for a total of seven - there will be those who think that Tansel could've made it a few more, had he not been shuffled out the door perhaps before his time was done. Someone saw his injury riddled body and made a decision, which in hindsight turned out to be wrong, as Tansel had a good few years at Hume City after us.

Con Blatsis, like Baser, was part of that mid-1990s Frank Arok-era youth intake. He also had five NSL seasons at South, and played in our first two VPL seasons; but while remaining on our senior list from 2007-2009, Blatsis never managed another game due to injury.

Vaughan Coveny had racked up nine NSL seasons at Lakeside, and three more in the VPL in stints broken up by his participation in the A-League, as well as the 2004 season spent with Essendon Royals - so twelve seasons all up, including three erratic VPL seasons, which gets Horsey comfortably over the line. 

The other player that comes to mind is Dean Anastasiadis, who had four mid-1990s NSL seasons with us, and two more seasons right at the end of the NSL at Lakeside - though in the 2003/04 season he appears not to have managed a game, with most goalkeeping duties taken up Eugene Galekovic, and the remaining handful by the artist formerly known as Michael Theoklitos. In our hour of need after the NSL however, Deano came back for four more season to make it to ten years all up, even if we might have been better off with a different keeper in the last couple of those seasons. 

So there it is, or perhaps (fingers crossed) there it will be - our first post-NSL era ten-season player. If all goes to plan, Norton will be our first ten season player since Dean Anastasiadis; the first player to play ten consecutive seasons at South since Vaughan Coveny, if we leave out the necessity of players like Coveny having to play elsewhere in 2004 following the dissolution of the NSL, (Anastasiadis also played with Coveny at Royals that year).

Figuring out this stuff is not the worst way to pass the pandemic time.

Smash. And. Grab. - Bentleigh Greens 0 South Melbourne 1

Let's be honest: at best, all you people were hoping for a draw. I admit that's all I thought we'd get.

Apart from anything else - our struggles, Bentleigh's good form, some sort of masonic conspiracy - it'd not been since Renco van Eeken's header early in 2013 that we'd beaten Bentleigh at Kingston Heath. That's seven games in league, FFA Cup and Community Shield. Think about it - it was that long ago that we had two less state titles under our belts, and Gus Tsolakis was coaching us. So no matter how much motivation there was at hand to beat Bentleigh, and even taking into account that the five year, seven game winless stretch also included quite a few draws, it hardly seemed like us winning was the most likely outcome. And I said that before the game, during the game when it was still level, during the game when we hit the lead, and even now that a priceless three points have been secured.

Speaking of motivation, much was made of a Facebook post by Bentleigh Greens about the then upcoming fixture, which noted that it was the "BATTLE OF THE CONTENDERS: NPL CHAMPIONSHIP VS NPL2". Now let me tell you, that got some people's backs up at South Melbourne, including people with influence - that is, the players - who were going to use it as "motivation" to win this game. Whatever works, right? I would've thought that, you know, Brad Norton's 200th game, our ongoing battle against relegation, even it just being a league game in its own right would've been enough motivation, but I'm just a Monday Morning Quarterback. Of course the post was taken down reasonably quickly, and replaced with something more benign but the damage, such as it was, was done.

As I've noted elsewhere, my main gripe was that it was taken down. Being simultaneously wary of and disinterested in "bants", especially when they come from official sources, my take is that if you're going to play these sorts of games, at least have the nerve to stick to your guns. I will grant that in this case, it seems to have been done without the express blessing of the Greens' hierarchy, and I guess that's enough of a reason to take it down, but still...

Of course South fans having a rather, er, "passionate" social media presence, a lot was going to be made of it, and people may be able to use it as proof of contribution towards something going right on the night, though I'm not quite sure what. I'd put more stock in Bentleigh's team missing some a couple of absolute sitters as being relevant.

Anyway, before all that there was a very long and tedious solo public transport trip to the ground, whose sole highlight was the 20 odd minutes of yacht rock that was on PBS while I was waiting at the bus stop in Cheltenham. Then at the ground, searching for the 20s game, and finding it was being played not the on the synthetic second pitch - which was getting relaid - but rather on another field farther back. Not that I was paying that much attention, almost copping a stray ball to head because of it.

Finally, time for the main game, in front of an ordinary crowd. With four other matches scheduled for the same night, including almost all the other Greek teams, it was pretty much the usual South travelling crowd and whatever Bentleigh normally rustles up on its own, which isn't much. If you were in any doubt, you could tell just from the pro-South noise coming from different parts of the ground who the majority of the crowd were here to support.

The first half was a pretty free flowing affair, though light on for clear cut chances for our part. And that's where the worry was always going to be. We all assumed that if we were going to have any chance of taking the three points it was going to be from a smash and grab effort. Bentleigh had the better of things, but there were also signs that maybe we could do something. Still in amid discussions about Ryan Scott's purple outfit, which led to speculation about whether was indeed a purple Power Ranger (turns out there were three!), we were happy with the 0-0 scoreline, figuring that if we were at least able to keep it to a draw, well that was a point we didn't have before, right?

The second half was much the same, dragging on with Bentleigh again having the better of things, as I watched on nervously with Clarendon Corner from the opposite end of the ground, from where it was impossible of course to tell exactly how close Bentleigh were to scoring.

Then came the twist that few of us dared dream of.

What turned out to be the winning goal was pure 2018 Oliver Minatel Novelty Goal Madness. A South Melbourne free kick too far out for a direct shot. Minatel is called by the South bench to be subbed off, only for him to tell them to hold off a for a bit. The ball is put into the box, Ryan Scott comes out for it, but Minatel throws himself into the danger zone, and the ball hits enough of him in the right place in the right way as he collides with Scott so that the ball ends up in the back of the net. Cue wild celebrations from South fans and players alike, except for Minatel who's still on the ground, and from me because I'm waiting for the ref to call some foul against Minatel in the vein of those "goalkeepers are protected species" fouls.

I watched the replay on my phone several times, searching perhaps to see if there was a hand involved. Any other player I wouldn't have even thought about it, but there's history here... but after more than enough squinting, I'm giving the Oli the benefit of the doubt, seeing as how he got bulldozed by the oncoming keeper for his troubles. It's more than I've done for the club in a long time.

But just on Minatel's goals this season: as was noted by a few at the ground, they've almost all been important goals, which is at least partly due to him spreading them out over a number of games, rather than scoring them all in one-off downhill skiing extravaganzas. Earlier this season I said that Minatel was more than underwhelming, and I stand by that, but there's few who could argue that he has become the team's best player and its most important contributor - sans perhaps the returning Nikola Roganovic - in the side's gradual revival.

Anyway, the goal stood, and we then had 20 minutes of normal time to ride out. Some subs were made, and they did well enough, playing the game on its merits - that is still looking for a goal when there was a chance for one, but also wasting as much time as was possible. Still, I didn't think we'd make it all the way to the end without conceding. Against a team that likes to play wide, we defended quite narrowly, all part of the plan to stay compact I suppose. As much as it helped us by compelling us to keep a certain shape, it did allow Bentleigh a lot of space. Fortunately, their crossing was atrocious. as bad as much of ours has been this season.

Brad Norton chaired on the shoulders of Leigh Minopoulos
 and Kristian Konstantinidis all the way to the supporters at
the car park end of the ground at the end of the game.
Photo: Unknown/South Melbourne FC.

There was six minutes of injury time, in keeping with World Cup trends, and another close call or two, but we got there. We've played better here since 2013 for no result, and we've played better in parts of 2018 too - just don't ask for specifics as to when - but you take what you can in desperate situations. There were also a couple of little bonuses as well. First, those of our players who were on four yellow cards didn't add to their tallies. Second, when things got heated with the officials, and there was the chance for pushing and shoving to take place, our boys stayed out of those situations which have been so expertly exploited by Bentleigh these past few years.

Amid the joy of the three points and what turned out to be a half-step away from the relegation zone, the occasion was joyous of course for being a proper commemoration of skipper Brad Norton's 200th game for the club. I think back to when "Braddles" started with the club in 2012, and how certain folk never took a shine to him. And then through the 2013 player purge - both immediately before and after Chris Taylor's tenure started - and how no one's position was really safe. And then the following season where despite us doing so well in the league, Taylor brought in Shaun Timmins, either to ultimately replace Norton or (less likely in my opinion) to motivate him to do better. Well, six years later, the proof is there for all to see, 200 games, as well as a couple of championships and a Dockerty Cup for one of the most popular players at the club; one who as captain, has always been ready to front up to the supporters at a game or through the club's media channels when things have gone badly, and who always takes the time to say hello when he makes eye contact with the fans.

And South of the Border hopes that there's many more games to come, hopefully in NPL rather than in NPL2, of course.

Next game
On Sunday at home against Hume City.

Relegation/survival prognostication, an ongoing concern
So what's changed over the course of a weekend? Well, despite our efforts, not much. Hume won 2-0 at Bulleen, which is bad for Bulleen (and merely "OK" for us), but very good for Hume (and not great for us). As if to prove how competitive the bottom sides are in 2018, Northcote picked up a win at an admittedly out of form Green Gully. Even Kingston managed a point away to Pascoe Vale, and were perhaps a touch unlucky not to get the win.

Last week we were two points clear of 12th place (Kingston), and now we're four points clear of 12th place (Northcote). So, happy as we all are that we got this unexpected win, it wasn't quite the relegation-near-busting result that it could've been. Next week is huge on the relegation front, not just for our game, but also Kingston at home to Northcote.

There's even those who are looking to the possibility of finals. That's just nonsense talk at this stage as far as I'm concerned, even as we are getting close to touching distance there. More importantly as relates to the teams immediately above us, is that they could be dragged into the relegation scrap, but the onus remains on us doing our bit to save ourselves first, and leave high concept ideas like finals appearances well enough alone.

After all, what good's a win against Bentleigh if we fail to pick up points against our fellow strugglers?

South women roll on
Headed out to Lakeside on Saturday arvo for our NPLW game against the struggling Box Hill United. The first half was surprisingly close. Box Hill looked up for the fight, and also looked to have a bit of quality on field as well. Melina Ayers in particular was well marked, playing out on the left hand side of attack being matched up against a very pacey fullback; I think there needed to be some adjustment in that part of the game plan, but it wasn't coming. Indeed Box Hill took the lead, and while you didn't necessarily have any fear that the game was lost - it was only the first half - it did show that perhaps we weren't at our best, though we managed to go into halftime level. The second half was a rout, with South winning 6-1, as Box Hill faded away into ineffectiveness. There's a lot of uncompetitive and half-competitive teams in the NPLW this season, which must be concerning to FFV. That's not a slight on Box Hill, who've pushed us this season in I think all our games, but more of a general observation about the progress of women's football in this state.

South Melbourne A-League bid information night
The club will be hosting an information night for members and season ticket holders regarding the club's A-League bid, at 6:30PM on Thursday July 26th, in the social club. Could be fun.

Good news, in a very minor way
Google has finally solved the issue of forwarding on comments for moderation to my email account. That should mean a return to former days of much quicker approval for publication of comments.

Final thought
I was over the Simpsons World Cup memes almost before they even started, but this is so beautiful.

HAHAHAHAHA this got me #ENGvCRO #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/eIrJZAhFCu

— Ryan Bowes (@RyanBowes4) July 11, 2018

November 2017 Digest

I hope you'll all forgive the very slow pace of the blog during the off-season. Even though there's so much I could talk about, being at the pointy end of the thesis project means that by the end of the day I'm pretty burnt out from staring at screens and trying to write. And where usually this would be my space for chilling out, for the first time in ten years I just don't have the mental space for it. One way or another it'll be over in the next two or three weeks, so keep patient and things will be back to normal soon enough.

Or you could submit something of your own to keep things ticking over...

AGM news
No date set yet. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

2018 season schedule...
Starting in the last week of February, which is a week or two later than what happened for the 2017 season. 

In the meantime, if like me you're waiting for pre-season friendlies to start to alleviate your boredom, don't expect anything this side of Christmas. My sources tell me that the team might reconvene for some training sessions before 2017 is out, but there almost certainly won't be any scratch matches held until January.

On the same token
Some of our current (and maybe current) players have been sighted participating in Knox City's longstanding All Nations Cup tournament. Nick Epifano is playing for Italy, while Andy Kecojevic is playing for Serbia. Milos Lujic, who has played for Serbia at this tournament in the past, also looks like he fronted up again this year.

Hashtag news
Sony will no longer sponsor the NPL concept. It's farewell to #ps4nplvic, and hello to... well, no one knows yet.

Arrivals and departures
Still pretty quiet on this front, but things are picking up ever so slowly. The big news was the signing of English striker Sam Smith from Gold Coast City. We had been keen on him, then it looked like he'd re-signed for Gold Coast, but it seems the mess Gold Coast is in off the field has titled things back our way. Nick Epifano has signed on for 2018, while skipper Brad Norton has signed on for another two years.

Some 'outs' have also cropped up. Reserve goalkeeper Zaim Zeneli has left South, joining North Sunshine Eagles in State League 1, while Stefan Zinni has signed with Avondale.

For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)
• Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)
• Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)

Out

• Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
• Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)

Typical - South Melbourne 2 Eastern Lions 0

Even with a four o'clock kickoff, the heat of the day tended towards being oppressive. Quite why anyone was dumb enough to spend any time out in the sun, including but not limited to Clarendon Corner and quasi-affiliated persons, is a mystery. At least CC decided to move into the grandstand in the second half, which helped preserve certain persons' pale skin from getting burnt. The two teams required to be out there were not so fortunate - but they are nominally there for our amusement, not their own.

What can one say of the various performances yesterday? Milos Lujic seemed to just cruise through this game, putting in the bare minimum of effort - more worrying is the state of his finishing, with two first half headers he'd normally at least get on target being sent wide being particularly troubling. Jesse Daley's wonderful crossing exploits from last week went down the tube yesterday (relatively), but he was still one of our better players. Kristian Konstantinidis again played well - but for how long he'll be a free man remains to be seen. Leigh Minopoulos did OK, Matthew Millar provided little more than a physical presence, while the defence overall handled itself well, even playing out of the back with more confidence - although the opposition's tendency to sit too deep did make things easier on that front.

We didn't use a photo of Brad Norton avoiding a tackle in last week's post,
because we just knew there'd be another one this week. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Skipper Brad Norton seemed to find his crossing range in this game, sending in some decent balls into the box, including one in the lead up to our first goal. A good switch of play from Carl Piergianni to Norton, who in turn sent an early ball which found Minopoulos deep in the box, who in turn cut a low ball in front of goal which could have been raffled by two South players, Lujic getting the crucial touch. Lions' defensive efforts weren't great in any part of this sequence, but credit must go to the decisive and accurate passing efforts of our players to make something happen here.

That goal saw Lujic became the first South player other than Minopoulos to score from open play for us this season, unless you're counting Lujic's goal in the Community Shield, which doesn't change the argument in any meaningful way - it's still Milos and Leigh doing all the heavy lifting on the goal scoring front. One could not possibly credit Jesse Daley with the second goal yesterday. His harmless free kick - not a cross, not a shot, not anything really - was heading safely towards the grasp of the Lions goalkeeper, when a Lions defender intervened to slice it spectacularly into his own net. That just about sealed the game. Nikola Roganovic had to make one low save, after our defence went to sleep from a free kick, but not much more than that during the second half.

Our finishing let us down again. After withstanding the best that Eastern Lions could throw at us, we should have won by more than the two goals that we did. But when you start from the low base that we have this season, you take the win and move on. One thing we seemed to do better in this match, and to a lesser extent last week, is move the ball around quicker than we have been doing. After watching the highlights of a certain higher profile fixture which took place last night, and the speedy ball movement in that game, clearly we have room to improve on that front. But it is getting better.

Looking forward to the next round of the cup, and while the draw hasn't been done at the time of writing, the odds of us being put up against an NPL team seem pretty good. Despite a couple of close shaves, every NPL team progressed except for the strugglers North Geelong (see this week's 'Around the grounds') and St Albans. As per Chris Taylor's post-game interview (complete with over the top gesturing in the background), we're going to have to play a lot better to make the inroads we're expected to in both the league and cup.

Next game
Oakleigh Cannons - who didn't seem to have any trouble putting away NPL 2 West's Brunswick City - away on Friday night. Just two away games to go before we head back to Lakeside. Speaking of which...

It is worth noting...
That this pending return to Lakeside is not only a matter of playing at home - but also the small fact of the players being able to train at Lakeside, instead of cutting a nomadic trail across Melbourne looking for any scrap of passable dirt on which to practice. It has not been an uncommon practice over recent years for the team to be away from Lakeside in the early part of the season, but this year has been particularly bad on that front. It's not the be all and end all of our struggles this season, but it's not not a factor either.

Social club rumours
No photos this week, but apparently progress is still going well. It's been suggested to me that the launch will effectively be a three day affair - the jersey night on the Friday before our first home game, then a family day on the Saturday, and our first home of the season on the day after.

Great moments in 'I guess you just had to be there'
The hill behind the western goal at John Cain Memorial Park is gone, flattened to make room for a new pitch. The mess of a scoreboard that was on the far corner of that hill is also gone. The bandwagon that attached itself to Northcote circa 2011 is, as we're all aware of, long gone. But the lemon tree out the back of the grandstand is still there. When they get rid of that - and the 'no smoking' signs in the grandstand which no one seems to pay attention to - that's when Northcote City Hercules should just fold.

'Pull your finger out' sweeps
Around about the 80th minute. Let's be honest, someone had to say it at some point.

Little lamb, you're lost in the great big world / Runaway, findin' streets so cold. 

Around the grounds
Before
There were a lot of goals in this game. It was 2-2 at the end of the regulation ninety, 3-3 at half time of extra time, and 4-3 to Northcote over North Geelong at the end of the game. I was entertained. I was bored. I was distracted. In other words, it was an above average game of football entertainment wise, which fluctuated wildly quality wise. The truth of the matter is that Northcote should have won this in regular time. They had the better chances and looked more conistently promising in attack. If they were more intent on playing the through ball early instead of watching a teammate stray offside, they wouldn't have needed the extra 30 minutes to make sure of things. As it was, North Geelong weren't bad, but they created less and relied on two free kicks - one well placed, one stunning - to keep them in the game. Eventually North Geelong ran out of gas and ran out of time.

After 
If nothing else, going to Olympic Village after our game proved that there is a such a thing as too much soccer. Heidelberg United vs Moreland Zebras - if not the chance for an upset, then perhaps at least the chance for a competitive game? Nope. Heidelberg controlled this game from beginning to end, and two goals in each half did the business for them. Crowd? Maybe 200 at a pinch, but not much more than that. Atmosphere? Flat as a tack, except for 10-20 Zebras fans who were more intent on blaming the ref than their own team for doing so badly; one chant of 'A-A-Lexandros' late in the game; and Heidelberg Harismidis running up and down the outer wing. All of which goes to show that, unless it's a marquee affair, the FFA Cup is hardly a panacea when it comes to resuscitating interest in the lower leagues. Still, like FFA and its friends in social media circles when they count the same participant three times for their participation metrics, my attendance at three games yesterday did its bit for artificial inflation of the metrics of spectator interest in Australian soccer.

Final thought
South of the Border was saddened to hear of the death during the week of Paul Henning, the father of SMFCTV host (and friend of ours) David Henning. It was always a pleasure of mine to have even the shortest of chats with Paul at a South game, whether the topic was footy, the vagaries and minutiae of teaching at a tertiary level, or even (gasp!) rugby union. My deepest condolences to 'Dubs' and all those close to Paul Henning.

Dead of Winter - South Melbourne 1 Bulleen Lions 0

After the abject horror of Tuesday, it would be foolish to expect miracles on Sunday. Indeed, were those miracles to occur, they would almost certainly manage to enrage the South Melbourne Hellas public far more than the wayward performance that was actually produced today. Had we come out all guns blazing and slaughtering an at best mediocre Bulleen, people would have wondered - and not without some justification - where that kind of competence was just days before. Instead, we got to see roughly where the team is located at this point in time - and not just within the context of this season, but in the context of the past three years since our revival under Chris Taylor.

It's worth noting that Taylor provided what we believed was needed at that time - an extreme back to basics approach, a team and style designed for the VPL as it was then, able to grind out results against all the other grinding, fighting, scrapping teams and the awful, potato patch fields they called their home grounds. But the old adage of 'be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it', reminds us that the peculiar mess we're in at the moment - still top of the table, but hardly feeling like we deserve it - is in part due to us, the fans. After so many incoherent and chaotic seasons following our 2006 championship, where we were occasionally brilliant but mostly just not good enough, the call went out for an experienced and no-nonsense coach, and a team that would play to win, and do whatever it took to do so - even if that 'sacred' South Melbourne Hellas trope of needing to win while also being entertaining got shown the door.

And to be fair, that approach has broadly been successful. The revival in the second half 2013 got us to within one game of a grand final. In 2014 we came storming out of the blocks and won the league with two games to spare. In 2015, despite struggles with injury, we managed to rally from behind to finish top of the table again, recovering well after the FFA Cup loss to Palm Beach to put together a stunning run that included the Dockerty Cup win. The grand final loss hurt, but the feeling was that perhaps Bentleigh deserved it. We'd had an amazing two and half season run, and we'd come back next year determined to redeem ourselves, especially after the catastrophic performance against Hobart Olympia.

But if that grand final loss, and the two losses against Bentleigh this year (and even our win) have shown us anything, is that the desirable attributes required now to succeed in this league have changed. No longer are the grinding, ugly teams, personified by the Green Gully sides of 1999-2011, the ones that do well. The game has changed. Irrespective of the relative competencies of the current leading teams (or at least those teams making up the top six at the moment), the emphasis has changed to teams trying to play better football.

And on that front, we have been found wanting. There are games where we have mauled teams this year, but there have also been games when we have been mauled, and rather than being considered an off day, those losses have mounted up - and we are now looking at something far more serious. And rather than see it as something which we can turnaround, the navel gazing mood at the present time is such that it's not just this year's losses, but all the 'big game' losses of the past three years, that have snowballed into an avalanche of despair.

In part due to suspensions, players traveling overseas, and apparently even some unverified sooking in the background, the team that took the field against Bulleen was not the one which played against Bentleigh. The bench even included a couple of under 20s players! But the set up was much the same, The inclusion of Andy Kecojevic showed a measure of attacking intent, as did the necessary inclusion of Amadu Koroma because Tim Mala was playing at centre-back, but the structure and ideology were the same.

Stand in captain Brad Norton competes for the ball against a Bulleen opponent,
with Andy Kecojevic in the background. Photo. Kevin Juggins.

In that regard we were fortunate to have two things in our favour: first, that our initial burst of 'we mean business after Tuesday's embarrassment' efforts saw us a score a goal, scrappy as it was. Second, Bulleen, either because they're in their own rut, or because they've lost important players, or because they weren't playing on their own synthetic turf, were poor. Getting that early goal made one hope, perhaps even expect, that we would run over the top of Bulleen. And it's not like we didn't have our chances to do so, and promising patches of play, but it just didn't happen. The longer that anticipated storming of Bulleen's barricades didn't happen, the more muddled and less inspiring things started to become. On several occasions today we arguably reached the point that no team wants to reach - the point in which one can identify players not wishing to take responsibility when they're in possession, preferring to pass it off to someone else.

As with Tuesday's performance, our players began playing balls without even looking where they may be kicking said balls. This is not entirely unreasonable - if you're a midfielder or a forward who's developed a rapport with your teammates of such a high level that a 'sight unseen' pass reaches its target in part due to cosmic understanding, great. When your defenders start pulling those moves, leading to turnovers in dangerous areas, not great. The whole experience eventually reached the stage where people were beginning to expect Bulleen to eventually equalise. This expected equaliser, had it actually happened, would have been scored by a team some in the crowd judged to be the least capable side we have played in the league this year.

Unlike some people, I think Chris Taylor is a good coach, one capable of reforming the team. But to do that he will also require a measure of self-reflection, and the acknowledgement that the task he was brought in to perform has been completed. He's got us back to being consistently competitive and among the leading pack. But the style and ethos that got us there needs to be, if not discarded, then adapted for a new reality - one where our nearest rivals have adapted, and begun to outperform us. This may mean the end of the line for some players. But the other problem is, because Taylor is a conservative and risk averse coach, whose recent success has been based on those attributes, it will be difficult to change those habits. Even today, it took until the 88th minute for Chris Irwin to get a run. Yes it's twice the game time he would have received had he come on during 91st minute, as has been the custom, but I'm not sure anyone's getting the best out of that situation.

¡Machismo!
The desire to witness within our team even the evidence of that intangible combination of the qualities of skill, ambition, desire, hunger, tenacity, was perhaps partly sated by the second half appearance of Manuel 'Manolo' Padilla Herero. While he was disappointingly placed in a wide position instead of closer to Milos Lujic - such is life at the moment - he did manage to show glimpses not only of his talent but also of (as one punter put it) testicular fortitude. Putting aside the PC abstractions inherent in that description, one wonders how one measures 'testicular fortitude', and how frighteningly literal such tests may be. Less literally, I can see where our punter was coming from, because even though Manolo has thus far played in less than ideal situations (one under 20s match, a lost cause, and a bit against Bulleen), there were signs that Manolo could be something worthwhile - provided that he can prove his worth against 'good' teams, and that his loan period lasts the entire rest of the season, instead of until whenever Leganes want him back.

Next game
Richmond at home on Friday night.

Censorship on SMFCBoard, again
Some of my more anally retentive readers will recall that I commented last year on the increasingly arbitrary censorship that was occurring on our beloved SMFCBoard. That comment lead in part to a more relaxed and tolerant approach to letting people post what they felt, and what I perceived to be a less secretive and arbitrary approach to forum moderation.

Well I'm sad to say that that period of gentler moderation has once again lapsed, and is unfortunately now worse than what had occurred before. I won't trawl over my own reasoning again for a more lax approach to moderation and censorship - anyone who visits this blog regularly enough knows where I stand. But I will say this - when one deletes an entire thread because one does not like the comments of a few within that thread, you take away not only that person's right to have their say, but also the right of others to read those comments, to engage with them, and to approve of, disregard, ignore, argue against, or even just plain old skim over those comments. The same goes for banning people because their view of the club doesn't fit your own ideas of what that should be - and I say that as someone who often disagrees with what the poster known an Buffalo Cup has to say.

It's not the only form of censorship on SMFCBoard - the lack of open registrations is one such other example - but as it is another step towards turning the forum into an echo chamber, I'm boycotting the forum until the people in charge of moderation as a whole come back to their senses.

Though it's possible I'll cave in before then.

Victory tribunal decision pending - coming soon?
Over the past two entries, I'd forgotten to mention the ongoing saga of this particular situation. Victory's tribunal session was held a little while back, with the details of the adjudication held back for 10 to 30 days, depending on which source you believe. If it is ten days, then tomorrow we should get news of what Victory's punishment is. Meanwhile, we also wait to see what the FFV tribunal have to say on our part in the affair.

Brandon Sanderson's Elantris, in case you were wondering

Reading a high fantasy novel during pre-match, because it's not like you can have a conversation with this loud music #smvbl #PS4NPLVIC

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) June 19, 2016

Around the Grounds
Disappointment
After Tuesday's calamitous performance, I had no real desire to watch any non-South soccer. Still, a friend's son - a goalkeeper - had been called up from the youth ranks at Clifton Hill to play in the reserves. and having known the young man for a number of years I felt it was my duty to go and watch. Also, something about vitamin D. Sadly, the young man was first relegated to the bench, and then to not even being on the team sheet, but we stayed on and watched anyway, as a swift and clever Clifton Hill edged an older Mornington 2-1. Not bothering to stay to watch the seniors, the young goalkeeper was dropped off home, and then his father and I went to see what was on offer around the burbs. Ending up at an open park with a pitch black cricket square somewhere in Flemington, with a deep slope towards one end adjacent to the establishment bowls club, we saw a green team playing a maroon and orange team. The greens were quickly identified as being Maribyrnong Greens of State League 4 West, with their opponents being Newmarket Phoenix. But after watching about five minutes, I dropped any pretense at interest in the proceedings, and we left.

Final thought
Lest we forget that today the fourth official finally became useful for something other than holding up a blackboard and playing babysitter to the competing coaches.

October 2015 digest

I don't think Colin Mochrie knows what I mean, but that's
all part of the game's appeal, isn't it? Or perhaps not.

Social club and Lakeside lease saga
Unresolved. But you already knew that, didn't you?

Club best and fairest
Brad Norton managed to snare that. What a relief, if you know what I mean.

(hands Real Madrid a random gift basket in the manner of Dr. Sheldon Cooper, and asks the pertinent question) 
Now, are we friends? Colleagues? Lovers? Are you my grandmother?

Technical director Sean Gale is no longer our technical director
He was... and now he's not. Now without getting into that whole debate about what it is that technical directors actually do, if indeed they actually do anything, it does make you think about why he's no longer with us. Was he not good enough? If so, why hire him in the first place? Is it because being in the NPL, we have to have a technical director to direct technically whatever it is that they're supposed to technically direct? Is this another sign of the ongoing failure of the club to create and maintain a working and consistent junior program, even though the NPL is pretty much just a huge chunk of a system that's set to make everyone conform and provide standardised customer service, whereby in an ideal situation each role at every franchise licensee can be filled by any number of people of equal mediocre calibre? Anyway, our new technical director is someone named Stratos Xynas, but that's not the end of that story...

One club to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them
Well, well, well. Isn't this something? Can I firstly say well done to whoever was responsible for getting this sorted out on both sides of the ledger. In other words, isn't it to great to see the men's and women's sides of the South Melbourne equation come back together under one roof?

Apart from anything else  - including rolling my eyes at the use of the term 'super club' - , I am fascinated by the lengths to which the (our?) club has gone to make a big deal out of this, including a very professional looking document which has been released as part of the announcement, if for no other reason than the alleged poor standard of documentation supplied by SMWFC during their bid for a licence into the WNPL in 2016.

After some bits you can easily gloss over about history and achievements, the document starts talking about the facilities at our disposal including this pearler:

Facilities available in 2016

Which then goes on to list such things as:

• Administration offices
• Grand foyer entrance 
• SMFC Museum 
• Commercial kitchen 
• Fully operational club bar 
• 300 seater bistro/restaurant 
• World Class Futsal court and café 
• Sports / Merchandise Store

In other words, THE SOCIAL CLUB! Can you believe it?! In 2016 we will finally get there! Or maybe not, because how many other arbitrary dates have been thrown around already in this agonisingly slow and torturous process? A fucken shitload, that's how many. 

Anyway, the document goes on to talk about coaching and such, including the fact that Chris Taylor is our technical director, by which I hope they mean interim technical director as I don't the NPL rules allow you to have your senior coach as your technical director. 

Skipping past the social media palaver, you start getting to the nitty gritty of how this joining of the two estates. Significantly, it includes female representation on board, and the intention to increase female representation in the years to come. This is important because for many, many years, more than most can remember, there have been three broad, if unspoken, conditions for being part of the South Melbourne Hellas board: 

• Were you baptised Greek Orthodox? 
• Do you have money? 
• Do you have a penis? 

Not all three have historically been required for joining the South board, but having two of those three has gone a long way. Have we ever had a female human on our board? This is an important question to ask because a lack of female representation on boards means that you only tap into half the available talent that's on offer - a situation made worse in our predicament whereby being irrevocably stuck in the state leagues takes away much of the incentive for 'talented' people to give up their time.

For a habitually conservative club (not that there's anything implicitly wrong with that) like South Melbourne this could lead to some interesting changes in culture. 50% female representation by 2020? It's a bold ambition to hold, and one I'm not sure some of our members will be willing or able to stomach. Having women's and men's senior matches as double headers by contrast seems almost quaint.

I must admit, I don't know how other clubs with both strong men's and women's programs - such as Box Hill United or Heidelberg - go about their business on this front. It'd be interesting, if I ever had the chance, to pick the brains of some of those involved in such clubs to see how they make it work.

My closing remark on this situation is this. As someone who has long advocated for the return of the women's wing into the broader South Melbourne Hellas family, I am broadly elated at this long overdue development. I hope that good outcomes result from it, such as

• a larger membership base
• more scope for revenue
• a stronger position from which to lobby governments and other organisations
• a stronger position from which to get SMWFC into the WNPL from 2017
• another step to getting the club closer to the top of Australian soccer (however fanciful that notion seems)

It could all so easily go to shit, but I really, really, really hope that it doesn't, because done right, this should make both sides of the ledger much stronger.

Player movements and contract statuses
Not much news since last month's update. Thomas Lakic is off to Oakleigh. Nick Epifano didn't get an A-League gig.

• Iqi Jawadi is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Michael Eagar is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Milos Lujic is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Leigh Minopoulos is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Tim Mala is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Chris Irwin has a two year contract with the club; it is unclear whether that contract finishes at the end of 2016, or 2017.
• Stephen Hatzikostas is contracted until the end of 2017.
• Brad Norton is contracted until the end of 2017.
• Luke Eyles been signed until the end of the 2017 season.
• Chris Taylor has a long term contract with the club, believed to be five years.

Players signed until the end of the 2015 season.

• Matty Theodore
• Nikola Roganovic
• Andy Kecojevic

Players with unknown contract statuses

• David Stirton (rumoured to be heading to Port Melbourne)
• Fraser MacLaren
• Kristian Konstantinidis (possibly until end of 2016)
• Luke Adams
• Cody Martindale (assume until end 2015)
• Jake Barker-Daish
• Nick Morton

Gone

• Andy Bevin (Team Wellington)
• Thomas Lakic (Oakleigh Cannons)
• Dane Milovanovic (Hong Kong Pegasus)

2016 Australian Grand Prix date
The date for the 2016 Australian Grand Prix has been revised, being brought back to the weekend of the 19th/20th March, two weeks earlier than the originally scheduled dates of 2nd/3rd April. Once again, a less than ideal situation when it comes to fixturing home matches for us in the earlier rounds.

The year was 1968. We were on recon in a steaming Mekong delta. An overheated private removed his flack jacket, revealing a T-shirt with an ironed-on sporting the MAD slogan "Up with Mini-skirts!". Well, we all had a good laugh, even though I didn't quite understand it. 
Here's an interesting little profile of Nick Epifano by Con Stamacostas, from a recent edition of FourFourTwo Magazine, as part of a series on the top ten players outside the A-League (ie, in the NPL). There may also be an Iqi Jawadi one as well. I wouldn't know, I don't buy FourFourTwo, as even if it does have snippets about South, those bits will be smothered by other, things, you know, of marginal interest to someone like me. That's not a slander on any of that magazine's writers and staff, mind you. People gotta eat, people think differently, and goodness knows I'm not expecting anyone else to live by my absurd but nevertheless finely tuned moral code.

Kookaburras (a couple of people, perhaps known to each other, have alerted me to this)
Is this for real? Like, serious?

They better get exclusivity over the condiments, too
I have heard strange rumours that part of the negotiations involved in the Lakeside lease is an attempt by the club to get exclusivity to the production and sale of souvlaki and souvlaki like products. Will we actually have a place to eat them in any time soon, or indeed ever?

Bobble - Avondale Heights 0 South Melbourne 7

The bus arrived at the bus stop on Hopkins Street two doors down from Melbourne's best cannoli already about ten minutes late, and it didn't get much better from there, traffic circumstances making us lose more and more time. The driver tried to rectify this by flooring it on the open spaces of Military Road which took me by surprise, meaning that Gains and I ended up alighting a stop further down the road than we would have liked. Never mind, a short walk never did anyone any harm.

For those who haven't been here before: Doyle Street Reserve is the most Spartan of the current day NPL grounds, though at least they've fixed up a few issues this season. They've added what looks like a 100 seat temporary stand, a miniature green tool shed for a media box, and temporary fencing around the ground in order to be able to more effectively charge admission. They've also removed the (puts on A Current Affair voice) death trap goal posts, which were a source of much angst last year.

The surface though was still an unresolved issue. Forget what the typically aloof and sneering South fan might say, but there were others there who were shocked that this was an NPL venue. One was in awe because he had umpired cricket here during the summer, another because (and I could be getting this wildly wrong) he could remember a game against Western Eagles Polonia here just a few short years ago. Sometimes the pace of on-field progress outstrips that of of off-field progress

The bumpy surface on a small field was always likely to prevent an attractive brand of soccer being played. That Avondale had recruited (probably great expense) good ball players and ex-South men Francesco Stella and Massimo Murdocca given that their strengths would be limited on that surface always struck me as odd. In other years, South would struggle to play on these kinds of surface, but a more practical approach in recent years has done wonders.

So while Avondale tried to play the prettier football and aim their shots high at Nikola Roganovic, South was happy to play dinky little balls over the top to the forwards, and with a bit of help from the bumpy service managed to take a 2-0 lead into half time. While we looked good things to take the three points, I had a sense that we could be one piece of bad luck away from having the game open up again.

As it happened, it was Avondale which completely lost its nerve, conceding three goals in almost as many minutes, with a series of mistakes from former South goalkeeper Chris Maynard and his defence gifting easy chances to South. Andy Kecojevic's goal, finishing off a cross from former Avondale man Chris Irwin made it six late on, and provided a welcome addition to the goal difference tally.

With the result long sewn up, attention was being paid to the Northcote - Bentleigh game, then still at 0-0. When the news had come in via the Futbol24 app that Northcote had scored, the 'I-I-Irakli' chants came out from Clarendon Corner, only for the goal to be retracted second later; though it took some time for news to reach the raucous away support, who had made use of the playground at the western end of Doyle Reserve.

It was funny watching and waiting for them to realise that the goal had been a mistake (reminiscent of the final round of the home and away season in 2006 out at Green Gully Reserve, where someone mistook Altona Magic doubling their lead for Heidelberg equalising - I guess you had to be there). The situation became less funny when Bentleigh took the lead moments later, but what can you do?

The game finished when substitute David Stirton was brought down from behind in the box, and Epifano having been subbed off, Lujic slotting it home for his hattrick and the further erasure of one more nagging penalty taking demon. Not that we've played the crème de la crème of opposition in recent weeks, but we sure as hell could have played a lot worse. The team is starting to find its groove again, and at the right time of the season, too.

Next game + the run home
Hume City on Wednesday night at Lakeside. Hume beat Heidelberg 2-0 this afternoon to secure their finals place. Whether that makes them more or less dangerous in the run in to the finals I don't know.

Jockeying for position. The race for top spot is down to two teams, while Knights and the Bergers will still be looking to finish top two to earn a week off and get home ground advantage.

Bentleigh are three points ahead of us, but with only one game left, against Oakleigh. Will Oakleigh use this game as a means of tuning up for their FFA Cup fixture against MetroStars, or will they go easy and save themselves any unnecessary grief? Strange things have happened in this fixture in the past. We now have the advantage when it comes to goal difference, and the chance to take top spot if we win both games no matter what Bentleigh does on Sunday. But Bentleigh have the tangible benefit of having won that extra game that we still need to win.

Heidelberg has two games to play, a midweek game against Green Gully, and a home game against the relegated Dandenong Thunder. Gully were eliminated from the finals race due to Hume's win today, but I wouldn't expect them to roll over. Meanwhile Melbourne Knights can't finish top, but they can still finish in second if we can't manage to even squeeze out a draw from our remaining two games, and they win their remaining fixture.

What's really amazing is this is exactly what Steve from Broady said would happen!

Apropos of almost nothing, a paragraph on what 1984 title winning coach Len McKendry thought of soccer supporters and what they knew about the game.

Excerpt from Paul Wade's autobiography, detailing one of the differences between Jimmy Rooney and Len McKendry.

Damnatio memoriae
Brad Norton has signed on for another two years, but the best bit of the relevant South Melbourne press release was undoubtedly the 'he who shall not be named' shenanigans:

Norton was appointed as Vice Captain in 2013 but captained the side for most of the second half of the season following the exit of South’s captain that year. (italics added by South of the Border)

Take that, dude, bloke, guy, whoever happened to be captain in the first half of 2013. Pretty childish if you ask me.

Speaking of exile to barren lands
Jake Barker-Daish has not even been on the bench for the past couple of weeks. Makes you think.

Sport in Victoria: A History
A new book was launched last Tuesday in one of the rooms at the Melbourne Cricket Club, though I forget which one (for the record, I deliberately avoided wearing a collar. Also, the jam tarts were shithouse). Sport in Victoria: A History, edited by Dave Nadel and Graeme Ryan (who is also the publisher) contains 180 odd contributions from 80 odd contributors on many sports played in Victoria, as well as some sporting bodies, venues and events. I have three contributions in this book: men's soccer (written with Ian Syson), women's soccer soccer and a short section on South Melbourne Hellas. It's a bit pricey - close to $80 for the paperback edition, and a bit more for the hardback - so it's the kind of thing that unless you were an obsessive, would best serve perhaps a Fathers Day or Christmas present, or you could perhaps try and get your local library to order in a copy. The book's format is sort of encylopaedic, giving overviews of the different themes, and hopefully prompting further study and exploration for those readers so inclined. The book does have some nice images in it, and does a reasonable job of covering most of what you would expect to be covered in such a tome, though the omission of something like roller derby when rogaining and petanque have been included seems a bit odd - maybe in a second edition?

Things could be worse!
Didn't like Chris Maynard as a goalkeeper? Be thankful I'll never be selected for South.

Ball kicked into crowd. @PaulMavroudis tries to catch ball like a man protecting his hat.

— Ian Syson (@IanSyson) August 15, 2015

My excuse is that the sun was in my eyes. If it was good enough for Peter Gavalas...

Final thought

What else you gonna do on a Saturday? #ps4nplvic pic.twitter.com/5uRpLHo86K

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) August 15, 2015